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Atrocities in Mormon History

Mormon history appears riddled with atrocities, injustices, and then systematic and church sponsored censorship of publication of records of actual events, including destruction of adverse evidence and falsification of records, as well as fabrication of false evidence as a cover-up.

Beware, young Mormon man, if a higher ranking church official covets your betrothed. Here is an interesting example:

Warren Snow was Bishop of the Church at Manti, San Pete County, Utah. He had several wives, but there was a fair, buxom young woman in the town that Snow wanted for a wife. She told him she was then engaged to a young man, a member of the Church, and consequently could not marry the old priest.

He told her it was the will of God that she should marry him. The girl continued obstinate. The “teachers” of the town visited her and advised her to marry Bishop Snow.

Then the authorities called on the young man and directed him to give up the young woman. This he steadfastly refused to do. He was promised Church preferment, celestial rewards, and everything that could be thought of— all to no purpose. He remained true to his intended, and said he would die before he would surrender his intended wife to the embraces of another.

The young man was ordered to go on a mission to some distant locality, so that the authorities would have no trouble in effecting their purpose of forcing the girl to marry as they desired. But the mission was refused.

His fate was left to Bishop Snow for his decision. He decided that the young man should be castrated, Snow saying, “When that is done he will not be liable to want the girl badly, and she will listen to reason when she knows that her lover is no longer a man.” It was then decided to call a meeting of the people who live true to counsel,… in Manti,… The young man was there, and was again requested, ordered and threatened, to get him to surrender the young woman to Snow, but true to his plighted troth, he refused to consent to give up the girl.

The lights were then put out. An attack was made on the young man. He was severely beaten, and then tied with his back down on a bench, when Bishop Snow took a bowie-knife, and performed the operation in a most brutal manner. The party then left the young man weltering in his blood. The young man regained his health, but has been an idiot or quiet lunatic ever since. To make a long story short, I will say, the young woman was soon after forced into being sealed to Bishop Snow.

Brigham Young, when he heard of this treatment of the young man, was very mad, but did nothing against Snow. He left him in charge as Bishop at Manti, and ordered the matter to be hushed up. This is only one instance of many that I might give to show the danger of refusing to obey counsel in Utah.

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Ok … Not arguing the essential point, but surely there are correspondent stories of every religious or political hierarchy throughout history. (Maybe the current political climate just has me remembering all the lessons my Father thought me (and so many others) in his classes on rhetorical tricks and obfuscations). I can’t help but wonder if that label … MORMON … Doesn’t raise some sort of prurient flag in most of us the same way “Muslim” seems to.

Oh, I am sure, I am sure. Hence my category is “Religion” and not Mormonism. Christians committed atrocities like this, albeit many hundred years earlier and therefore more veiled in the murky mists of time.